The Masked Showdown
by SuperWG
Summary: Two masked fighters. One valuable item hanging in the balance. When Red-X attempts to pull off a huge score, can Robin stop him? Catching him is hard enough, but the thief has more than a few tricks up his sleeve!
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: I don't own any of the characters or anything**

 _ **Three months ago...**_

Location: T-Car, en route to crime scene

"I can't believe I created such a monster."

"Robin, you musn't blame yourself."

"Yeah man. What's done is done. We all make mistakes. All we can do now is try and stop him."

Cyborg and Starfire tried to cheer Robin up, but their leader was still feeling guilty. He had created the Red-X suit so as to get closer to Slade. Now someone has stolen it. While there were limits to what the new Red-X would do with it, stealing wasn't off limits to him. Robin had felt a sense of pride in stopping crime, and it made him sick to think that every crime the anti-hero was able to commit was because of him.

The car pulled to a stop and the five young heroes exited. They had arrived, but couldn't find any sign of the thief. Well, they had, but he darted away before they could catch him. They gave chase but he seemed to have lost them easily. "Split up and search for him!"

Beast Boy was preoccupied with something else. "Maybe you can take some of the stress off your hands by letting me borrow your mask?"

Yeah, it sounded stupid, but it was worth a shot, and Beast Boy was out of ideas.

"For the last time Beast Boy, no! I can't let you borrow my mask!"

'He just said "for the last time" so that means next time I ask, he'll break and let me borrow it!' Beast Boy muttered to himself, though apparently not quite to himself.

"You're an idiot." Raven commented, having heard what he said.

"Aw man, Robin, why can't I borrow the mask?" he pleaded more than asked.

"Beast Boy, that mask was given to me by Batman, my mentor. It has incredible sentimental value. And with the expensive gold material it's frame is made from, it's worth over 100 million dollars. Every villain in Jump City will attack you for a chance to take it. I'm afraid that item cannot leave the evidence room."

The green changeling nodded in understanding. He wouldn't have even let Starfire borrow the mask. He was still disappointed about it, but his thoughts were cut short when an X-shaped projectile landed right at his feet. He jumped back, startled, and then he saw the criminal they had been looking for standing a few feet from them.

"Well, if it isn't the Teen Titans" Red X sneered. He threw an X-shaped smoke bomb at them, taking off as soon as it hit the ground and began to release smoke. He was hoping to get away quickly but a giant hand made of black energy grabbed him before he got too far. His mask allowed him to see through the fog, and when he spotted Raven, he threw a grenade-like X at her. Once it went off, he was dropped and took off again, this time using his teleport.

The teleport on this belt didn't work all the time, so he had to use it sparingly. He also dodged two pairs of blue and green lasers, but the third blue one hit him, knocking him down. He looked back to see the Titans gaining on him. With a shriek of frustration, he threw the bag of jewels that he had robbed on the ground and continued running. The heroes briefly ceased their chase to collect the scattering jewels.

"Just like golden apples" he muttered before taking off and getting too far away for them to catch him.

Needless to say, Robin was none too happy that by the time they managed to retrieve the jewels, Red X had escaped. But he also couldn't help but wonder why the villain gave them up so easily. Going home empty handed wasn't something X had ever wanted to do, and only did so as a last resort before he was captured. Though when Robin counted the jewels he had retrieved and compared them with the number that were stolen, he found that there were still two or three missing. They had picked up all the ones on the ground, so X must have taken a few out of the bag and kept them for himself.

 _ **Present Day**_

Location: Titans Tower Common Room

Robin was reading the paper on an ordinary morning. He could hear Cyborg and Beast Boy arguing over whether or not breakfast would include tofu. He heard the two voices going back and forth, but wasn't really listening to what they were saying. Eventually he heard Raven tell them to be quiet because she was reading, both boys tell her to butt out, then all three yelling at the same time.

He really thought all three of them were being ridiculous. There was no reason for Cyborg to insist on not having tofu in their meal. Beast Boy could have easily gotten some cereal or cooked some tofu himself. And if he could read the paper despite the noise with no problem, why did Raven have such a hard time with it? And couldn't she just go to her room or somewhere quieter if she needed silence that badly? It was as if the three actually liked to fight in the morning. He wasn't even going to get involved. Tracking down Slade and scouring the paper for clues was much more important.

"Friends, must we always do the loud arguing and fighting in the morning?" he heard Starfire say. Unlike Robin, she was still bothered when her teammates shouted at each other like this.

By the time breakfast was over, they were _still_ arguing. Robin found this to be unbelievable. He had changed his mind about not getting involved, and was just about to say something when the alert sounded. A picture of the criminals causing trouble appeared on screen.

"It's the Hive. Titans Go!" Now he could take out his frustration at his team on some bad guys.

"Aw man! I was hoping to test the new security BB and I just installed in the place!" Cyborg complained.

"You made security upgrades?" Robin asked. This was news to him.

"Just a little something to do in my spare time. Grass Stain kept complaining about me not letting him help build the T-Car, so we came up with something for him to do. Plus, a little extra security couldn't hurt."

"Interesting, but testing it will have to wait. Let's go!"

Robin rode his motorcycle alongside the T-Car, and he was pretty sure this was going to be boring. The Hive were easy villains to defeat. At least he'd have something to take his anger out on. He was thinking of going after Jinx. After she pretended to be helping the Titans against the Brotherhood of Evil, she played Kid Flash and secretly freed the other Hive members (some of them at least, he doubted she'd gotten to every last one). She had just switched sides because it was more convenient for her. Robin didn't take kindly to people who did things like that.

Suddenly Cyborg set the T-Car to autopilot and poked his head out the window towards Robin.

"Robin, my security system is picking up an intruder!"

"Not now Cyborg, we've got a mission to do." Robin was pretty sure he was just making a show of his new upgrades to the Tower.

"For real man! You're gonna want to see this." Reluctantly, Robin took a look at the screen Cyborg had displayed for him.

"No, no, no!" After seeing the live feed, Robin was in a panic.

"Listen man, we got the Hive. You go deal with that situation." Robin felt bad about not helping with the mission, but he really needed to take care of this. He knew what was happening based on where the intruder was heading, and he hoped with all his heart that he'd get back before it was too late.

Beast Boy, being Beast Boy, said, "Well, at least we know the security system works. Hehehe..."

The others all glared at him.

Location: Titans Tower Evidence Room

Red-X was going to steal Robin's super expensive mask. Honestly, that day three months ago, he was just looking to score a few bucks with the jewel heist, but then he overhears the Titans talking about some mask in their evidence room that was worth over 100 million dollars? There were practically dollar signs in his eyes when he heard that. He hadn't even cared that much about the jewels anymore, which is why he didn't mind throwing most of them away to secure his escape.

He had gathered a small group of essential items to take with him and stash comfortably in his suit, just in case things didn't exactly go according to plan. He had a similar mask to swap out as a fake, and color changing film to put over the glass case that the mask was in. He couldn't find any fake framing that looked quite convincing enough for him.

"Crap!" he said, realizing he only had one sheet of it. He would have needed six for them to work, otherwise people would just be able to see that it was different by looking at it from another angle.

He wasn't able to get his hands on a quality lock pick due to a stroke of bad luck. He had a screwdriver that might work, but in all likelyhood he was going to take the thing home and open it later in his apartment, or hideout. The whole case would be hard to do acrobatics with, so hopefully he wouldn't have any trouble.

Because he had never quite corrected the flaws in his belt that were hampering his teleportation, he had been experimenting with the xenothium. He had a special batch that energized his weapons. It would make them much more powerful, and hopefully increase the chances of his teleport function working correctly. The problem was that he had exactly one vial of it, enough to last him only about twenty to thirty minutes or so. He could afford to use it only if things really got ugly, which he doubted they would.

You see, Red-X had a few connections around Jump City. That was how he had gotten the little mini-sub that he used to get to and from the Tower. Flying there in a small hovercraft would be easier, but might be conspicuous and attract some unwanted attention. He also had talked to the Hive, and he knew the Titans would be out dealing with trouble today, which was why he had this planned for a while.

He thought. 'Hmm, which way should I go?' His first thought was to simply go back to his hideout and undress, stashing the mask away there. But he was slightly paranoid about running into the Titans and them somehow catching him. This was a big heist, and with that task came anxiety. He had been standing at his mini-sub about to leave, but he decided to take a few minutes to think his escape route through. 'After all, I've got time. The Titans won't be back for a long time.'

"Red-X!"

He literally jumped when he heard Robin shout his name. He whipped around to see the Boy Wonder riding up on the island through the tunnel that the Titans normally use.

"Aw, sugar honey iced tea!" Red-X shrieked as he jumped in his mini-sub and took off in a diagonal direction going towards the city, but away from the Titan's underwater streetway.

Red-X hadn't known about the new security system.

 **Author's note: I was planning to write this all as one shot but it's taking a while, so I'll call the chapter there. It'll end up being two or three chapters in all. Will Robin ever get his mask back? Find out!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Auhor's Note: I don't own any of the characters or anything.**

 **The Masked Showdown (Part 2)**

 **Location: Jump City Bayside**

"What the hell! Did he forget something and come back to get it?" Red-X shouted aloud. He had no idea how Robin managed to catch him. The security system had really put a damper on Red-X's plans.

It put a damper on someone else's plans too.

His heart pounded as he mentally tried to will the mini-sub to go faster. He had hoped that he could somehow lose the other masked fighter when he arrived at the edge of the bay, but as his sub neared the surface, he saw Robin waiting for him. He felt inside the compartments on his suit to brandish his weapons, and he pulled out some brass knuckles.

"Didn't even know I had these on me" he said thinking out loud again. He started putting them on, but midway, he stopped and took them back off. They sometimes hurted his hands, and he couldn't afford to have them out of comission right now. Instead, he just took out some of his X's and prepared for battle.

"Come out and face me, you theif!" Robin snarled, feeling a sense of determination. Normally, Red-X was a pretty tough customer, skilled enough to take down Robin's whole team. But right now he felt like he could take him. X looked like he was panicked, like he hadn't expected him back so soon. 'I guess I can't be mad at Cyborg for this morning anymore.' he thought with a smirk. 'Although Beast Boy will still need to get an extra long tounge lashing.'

"Guess it wouldn't have been any fun without a fight" Red-X said, his synthesizer obscuring the tone of his voice. He stepped out of the sub and onto land, X's in hand.

Robin jumped up, extending his staff in midair and attempted to bring it down on the theif. Red-X had just enough time to dodge before the staff came swinging at him again. He leaped backwards and Robin threw some flashbomb disks his way. They didn't hit him directly, but the explosion's force took him off his feet. Just as he was getting back up, he saw his adversary throw a bird-a-rang at him and then leap into the air with his staff again and attempt to bring it down on him. This time, Red-X was able to counter. First, he blocked the bird-a-rang's hit with a harder piece of armor underneath his costume. With a flick of his wrist, he threw an explosive X which hit the boy wonder right in his midsection. Upon impact, the explosion knocked him out of the air violently.

When he noticed that Robin wasn't getting up too fast, Red-X turned to take off again.

"Hey, get back here!" Robin shouted, and drew his grappling hook, sending it sailing towards the theif. Red-X anticipated this, though. He caught the hook by the rope, and when Robin yanked it back, he simply let it take him. He repositioned his body so that his left foot was sticking out towards Robin. Red-X had used the grappling hook as a rubber band of sorts to spring his foot right into Robin's midsection.

Robin got kicked so hard that he was knocked backwards into the bay. Luckily he had pulled his grappling hook into the bay with him, though he dropped it once he hit the water. He needed to find it fast.

"Handled that like a pro" he heard Red-X say. Shortly after, he heard another explosion, like one of the exploding X's was going off. Then he heard footsteps quickly getting further and further away. Red-X had escaped, and kicked his butt too. He tried to listen to which direction he heard the footsteps going, but his chest hurt so much from the kick that it was difficult. He was sturggling to stay above water despite the pain. Once he caught his breath, he prepared to swim under the water to find his grappling hook. It turned out it hadn't gotten far. The hook had latched onto a large rock before it could fall too deeply under the water.

Once he had it, he used it to get back onto land. It took him a little longer than he thought. He decided he'd start a new training routing on how to get out of water quickly. he was going to waste no time hopping on his motorcycle to pursue Red-X, but when he got up there he made a horrifying discovery.

His motorcycle had been destroyed. Red-X had blown it up before darting away. He decided to check on his team to see how they were doing with the Hive. He opened his communicator and attempted to call Cyborg, but all he got was static. He then tried Beast Boy, Raven, and Starfire but got the same results.

"The water must have damaged it!" Robin was disappointed. So much for an ordinary day. One of his most prized possessions was in the hands of a criminal, and he was hoping to get in touch with his team to get some help from them. He thought back to that morning. He would have definitely rather listened to his teammates fight all day than spend his time doing this. He usually enjoyed fighting crime, but this was stressful. He breifly wondered if his teammates were okay. He dismissed the idea that they were in trouble. How could they have a hard time against the Hive? They were easy.

His eye then fell on the bird-a-rang he had thrown. He picked it up and inspected it. The tracer he had placed on it prior to throwing it was gone. He pulled out his tracking device, and started sprinting in the direction that it lead him.

 **Location: Hive battle scene**

The fight had been led into what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. The four other Titans were engaged in battle with the Hive, when suddenly, they brandished jetpacks and began flying away. They crashed through the warehouse windows.

"Hey, what gives?" Beast Boy asked.

"Have fun bein' trapped, losers!" Gizmo shouted with a loud cackle.

Suddenly, four trapdoors opened up in the floor, plummetting the teens into darkness. They were okay after they hit solid ground. When they were back on their feet, the lights came on. They were in a large, metallic room.

"We'd better get out of here and go catch up with the Hive" said Cyborg. He spotted what looked to be a control panel near what was clearly a huge door. He started fumbling with it to get the door open.

"The lock is super encrypted. It'll be a while before I can get the door open." Cyborg said.

Raven attempted to use a portal to teleport herself and the others above ground, but she couldn't leave the room that way. "It's magic proof too." she said.

"Alright then, we'll have to try and bust out the old fashioned way." said Cyborg, putting his fists together. "BB, Star, you guys ready?"

"Yeah, let's do it!"

"We are the ready!"

Beast Boy turned into a bull, then he, Cyborg, and Starfire charged the door with all their strength. The door didn't budge. Beast Boy resumed human form and fell out backwards on the floor. Suddenly a holographic figure appeared on the far side of the room.

"Hello, Titans." It was Slade's voice. They all looked up and saw the hologram.

"The Hive did a great job leading you here. As you can see, leaving this room will prove to be somewhat difficult. But don't worry. I have a few of my robots to keep you company. But seeing as to how Robin has seperated from you, there won't be as many as I intended. After all, I'll need a few to escort him to this party."

Compartments along the walls suddenly opened up and hordes of Slade-bots came through and attacked the four Titans.

"We need to warn Robin." Raven said, dodging an attack from one of the robots.

Beast Boy pulled out his communicator, but all he got was static. He looked around to find the others having much the same luck.

"It's no use! The signals are jammed!" Cyborg shouted while blasting some robots with his sonic cannon.

"I truly hope Friend Robin has retrieved his mask from the Red-X." Starfire said worriedly.

 **Location: Jump City streets**

Red-X knew that Robin would have been able to catch up to him in no time flat had he still had his motorcycle, even with the head start he'd gotten by knocking Robin into the bay. The thief's own motorcycle was at his hideout on the other side of the city. He had thought clean and quiet was the best way to go about this rather than loud and fast. Too bad things went sideways and now he could have used a fast getaway. But thinking ahead, he destroyed Robin's motorcycle with another of his explosive X's to slow him down. He needed to be careful though. He had only brought three explosive X's with him, and he'd used two of them.

Red-X also knew about Slade's plans for the Titans today. He frequently touched bases with the Hive and they occasionally hire him to steal things for them. Gizmo and Mammoth were so excited about setting the trap that they went ahead and blabbed to Red-X about it. The theif was happy to recieve the information, and made a mental note not to share any top secret information with them. He knew that they'd get out of Slade's clutches, they always did, but it provided the perfect opportunity for him to snag that mask he'd had his eye on. Of course now he still had to deal with Robin, but the others most likely wouldn't be showing up to help him anytime soon. If they had eluded the trap, they would have been on his tail already.

Right now, he was looking for a place to hide for a bit. He'd gotten a safe distance away from the bayside, and now he needed a chance to catch his breath. And get this case open that contained the mask. Once he dove into an abandoned shop, he took a few seconds to get his stregnth back. Then he pulled out the screwdriver and started working on opening the case.

He had been at it for about thirty-five minutes when he looked out the window and noticed some Slade-bots scouring the streets. So Slade had redirected some of his robots to send them after Wonder Boy? This was great news for the theif, or so he thought.

A robot entered the shop he was hiding in, and raised its arm. Its gun arm. Red-X had a couple of seconds to dodge the shot that the robot took at him. He dismantled it quickly with his X-a-rangs but he could already see more bots coming his way. He tossed a few short-curcuiting X's that were meant for Cyborg at the group of robots, using the breif pause in action to create some X-blades to put on his hands. He then started slicing up the remaining robots.

'Slade's machines must not be able to tell me from Wonder Boy.' he thought. He very much doubted Slade would have a reason to go after him. Oh, well. So much for using Slade's bots to his advantage. Nothing seemed to be going right today.

 **Author's Note: This story will end up being three parts. Next chapter will show the conclusion and a little bit of the aftermath. Reviews are much appreciated.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: I don't own any of the characters or anything.**

 **The Masked Showdown (Part 3)**

 **Location: Jump City streets (eastern district)**

Robin had been following X's trail closely, and had tracked him to an abandoned shop. He was about two blocks away when he saw the Slade-bots coming for him out of the corner of his eye. He pulled out his staff and extended it.

"Slade!" he said with a disapproving tone. He should have known he was involved somehow. He wondered if the others were fighting off Slade-bots as well. He wouldn't put it past Slade to want to capture only him, so as to force him to become his apprentice once again. But usually Slade's stunts were planned out, and there was no way he could have planned on Robin being seperated from the rest of his team. Unless...

His thoughts were cut off as a group of bots began to attack. One raised its arm and fired a few shots at the masked hero, all of which he dodged before dispatching it with some bird-a-rangs. The next few jumped in to attack him physically. Robin was excellent at hand to hand combat, or in this case, hand to... something. He jumped up and performed a roundhouse kick which broke the machines into pieces. He then threw some flashbombs to buy time to put some distance between himself and the group of machines. Then he readied some of his EMP-type weapons. As he threw them, he regained his train of thought.

He was thinking that maybe Slade actually hired Red-X to steal his mask today to seperate him from the other Titans so that he would be nice and ripe for his Slade-bots' taking, especially after he already fought the theif earlier. But he wouldn't even know that Red-X was in the tower had it not been for the new security system. Either Slade somehow hacked into it, which was farfetched even for him, or Slade didn't plan this. It was more likely that Red-X knew what Slade was planning and was looking to take advantage of it. Which would mean that Slade actually planned to attack the whole team with Slade-bots. Considering the fact that he'd seen more of them in Slade's previous attacks, he guessed that the rest of the team were dealing with their own mechanical mayhem.

He really did want to get his mask back, but he was starting to feel bad about just leaving his team to do it. Of course he couldn't really go anywhere at the moment as Slade-bots were keeping him occupied, but he wondered if he should go look for them once he was done here. He wasn't sure how he'd find them. Their communicators and other traceable signals were not showing up. Could the water have damaged his tracking device too? He could've sworn that Cyborg said that it was waterproof. The team was likely in trouble.

Slade must have sent out some kind of new prototypes because these last few weren't going down like the others. Robin had used every different type of weapon he had on it and nothing worked. He was going to need to attack their weak spots until they fell apart, which would take a while. He started analyzing the robots more carefully to inspect them for any weak spots.

 **Location: Jump City streets (western district)**

Red-X thought he had spotted Robin a ways down a few minutes ago while he was fighting the Slade-bots. A pile had attacked the boy wonder before he could reach the theif, but Red-X still needed to put some space between them. So he ran in the opposite direction, sticking to the shadows of course, but the bots still kept up with him. By now he had lost count of how many blocks he had run, but he was nearing the city limits that were furthest from the Titans' tower.

Luckily for him, there were only a few bots going after him, since so many had seen Robin first. He sliced them all up with his X-blades and kept running. There weren't any more abandoned structures nearby, so he took refuge on a rooftop in a small nook.

"Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to take the few extra seconds to bug Wonder Boy's room." he thought out loud. He needed a back up plan to get the mask another day in case he failed today. But he would have already gotten away if he hadn't done it.

Wasn't the hero worried about his friends? Surely he would've found out by now that they walked into a trap. Now that he thought about it, Slade had probably jammed their communicators. He could have just told him that his friends were in trouble, but he doubted that Wonder Boy would believe him.

He pulled out the glass case and screwdriver. It was clear that he wasn't going to be able to move around too much more without dropping the case. He had a compartment in his suit that was perfect for the mask, but the case was too big to fit in it. He thought about breaking the glass, but the glass was pretty hard. He could probably break it if he tried hard enough but that would risk damaging the mask inside. He started trying to open the case by picking the lock with the screwdriver. So far no luck.

"Come on! Come on!" he said while he worked the screwdriver. After a while, he put the screwdriver down and stated trying to pick the lock with the edge of one of his X-a-rangs. Right now he was frustrated. It was not supposed to be this hard to open this!

"Come on! Open you stupid thing!" he said angrily. "Come on!"

 **Location: Warehouse Trap**

The Slade-bots lay in broken pieces on the floor. Cyborg furiously worked on decrypting the lock on the huge door which had the four Titans trapped. The door suddenly hissed open.

"I got it!" he shouted, and the group quickly made their way to the exit. Soon they found themselves back outside of the warehouse.

"No time to celebrate though. We have to help Robin get his mask back!" said Raven. "Cyborg, are the communicators working again?"

"I think so. We should be out of range of the signal jammers." Cyborg tested the communicator. "Robin, this is Cyborg. Come in, over."

After a few seconds, Robin picked up. "Cyborg! So the water didn't damage my communicator?"

"No, man. The Hive fight was a trap set up by Slade. He sealed us in and was jamming our signals while he sent his robots to attack us. The thing is, he sent some after you, too."

"I know, I already destroyed them."

"Did you catch Red-X and get your mask back?"

"I wasn't able to. I put a tracer on him, but Slade's attacked me before I could catch up to him. Titans, Red-X planned this out. He knew the fight was a trap and was planning on making a clean score while we were out."

Beast Boy perked up. "Now that I think about it, it is a pretty big coincidence that he'd try to rob us on the same day that Slade set the trap for us."

Cyborg spoke again. "Do you still have a lock on your tracer?"

"Yes, he's moving towards the edge of the city. We need to catch him before he gets that far."

"I've linked up with your tracking device and I've got a lock on him too. We'll be there to help you out as soon as we can."

"Thanks guys, this really means a lot to me."

They had never really heard Robin express gratitude much before. They were all taken back. Robin hung up his comminicator then.

"Raven, can you teleport us to X's coordinates?"

"I've already expended too much of my powers getting past the magic proof seal. If you want me to be any help against Red-X, I'll need to rest up for a bit." she said.

"Beast Boy and I shall do the flying. Friends Cyborg and Raven shall take the vehicle." Starfire suggested.

"Alright, let's go help Robin!" Cyborg said. They set out to do just that.

 **Location: Jump City limits**

When Robin was able to destroy the robots that were attacking him, he'd set off after the theif once again. He had almost made it to him when he got the call on the communicator from Cyborg. He didn't stop, opting to talk to him as he was moving. By the time he hung up, He had Red-X in his sights. He had been sitting on the ground, looking to be out of breath from running so much. The mask's case was on the ground next to him giving off sort of a glare, but Robin could make out the mask inside. Red-X apparently hadn't gotten it open yet. The area that they were in was overlooking a highway, and had some abandoned buildings in the vicinity.

"Red-X! Hand my mask over!" Robin said. If he was as tired as he looked, fighting him would be easier.

Red-X looked up and saw Robin running towards him. He hadn't noticed the boy wonder because he was catching his breath and didn't stay on high alert. He instantly jumped into position and threw some X-a-rangs Robin's way. The hero blocked them with his staff, so Red-X sent another wave, but this time the last one was a sticky X. Robin fell for the trap and was ensnared. The theif turned and started to run the other way again, but knocked sideways by an energy blast that he didn't see coming.

He was knocked off his feet and skidded on the ground. Bewfore he could get up and see who had blasted him, a black dome enveloped a wide area around the two masked fighters. At least one of Robin's teammates had arrived, and that meant that the gang had escaped Slade's trap by now.

For a moment, Red-X almost lost it. He had planned this out for three months. He had been so close. He had run and fought and tangled with Slade's robots, only to be caught and stopped in the end. He knew that fighting all five of the Titans would be considerable harder now. His teleporter seemed to be completely out of comission. It was all ruined. Ruined!

'No' he thought 'I can't let it end like this!' He didn't want to have to go though it all again another day, and surely the Titans would take even more precautions to prevent any more theft attempts of Robin's mask. If he didn't pull this off now, it was over.

He had to make this work, he decided. He was only vaguely aware of his hands slipping on the brass knuckles he had pulled out earlier. As his hands brushed his arms, he felt something that shouldn't be there. A tracer. So that was how Robin kept finding him. He pulled it off and crushed it.

He had dubbed the experimental xenothium that he was working on to make his teleporter work again super xenothium, and he was now loading that into his belt. He had tested this a little, but not too much, since he had only concocted a little bit and it was hard to recreate. This would energize his X-a-rangs so that they hit with the force of energy blasts while still coming back to him for reuse. His sticky X's would be much more sticky than before, almost impossible to break out of.

He knew that he'd have to find Raven and hit her with an X-a-rang if he wanted to escape, but he didn't see her anywhere. She must have been holding the dome up from the outside, and he doubted that his weapons, even in energized form, could pierce the dome. He wasn't about to waste his weaponry finding out either.

He had two options. he could try and hold his own until she eventually tired out and dropped her energy force field at which point he could escape, or he could unleash the full fury of his weaponry upon the boy wonder, and force her to drop the force field and intervene if she didn't want her leader to get seriously hurt. He was kind of angry, so the latter seemed more appropriate at the moment.

Robin and Red-X stared each other down. They began circling each other, the black dome casting shadows upon their features.

"Last chance, Red-X. Give back what you stole and the police might go easy on you." The theif chuckled.

"Okay, I surrender. Not!"

Robin's reaction time wasn't quick enough as Red-X suddenly charged him and landed a punch right to his jaw. As he felt the blood run from his lip and remembered the force of the punch, Robin realized that the theif had geared up since their last fight. He quickly jumped back to his feet and threw three bird-a-rangs at his opponent, only to gasp in shock when one energized X-a-rang cut through all three bird-a-rangs **and** hit Robin in the chest, knocking him back down.

"Booya!" both masked fighters heard from just outside the dome. A hole appeared in it suddenly, just big enough for the three remaining Titans to zip through.

Cyborg really shouldn't have shouted though. Red-X had enough of a window to chuck an energized sticky X at the trio, which collided with them before they could even enter the dome. Beast Boy quickly morphed into a mouse and avoided the projectile, but Starfire and Cyborg were ensnared instantly and plummetted to the ground, no longer able to help.

Now inside the dome with the masked fighters, Beast Boy turned into a bull and was charging at Red-X. But he threw an energized X-a-rang at the green animal, knocking it back slightly and turning it back into Beast Boy. Robin had been trying to hit Red-X with his staff, but in one motion, the anti-hero dodged it as he followed up his X-a-rang attack on the changeling with a roundhouse kick. The green Titan was knocked back into the wall of the dome which gave him a dark energy shock. He then fell to the ground, seemingly unconcious.

Robin stood shocked. His whole team was just taken down in less than five seconds. It was like something out of The Matrix. He knew he was going to have to step it up if he wanted to bring his enemy down. So far he had failed to land even a single hit on him today. He had to do something about that.

He aimed a punch at Red-X as quick as he could, but the theif vaulted over him and dodged. He whipped around and swung his staff in X's direction, and he started to dodge that too. But then instead of just going to hit him, Robin jammed the pole into the ground and used it to perform a swinging kick. It connected with Red X's abdomen. He stumbled back and hit the wall, receiving a shock and falling over. Oh yes, the barrier was electrifying.

While Red-X was still stunned from the shock, Robin threw some flashbomb disks his way, causing X's hands to instinctively fly upwards towards his face. With the other hand, Robin whacked X in his side with his staff, and in the same motion he jumped up. He knew Red-X would drop his arms again, which he did, so Robin was able to roundhouse kick him in the head. Red-X fell to the ground.

But in an instant he jumped back up, throwing out three energized X-a-rangs simultaneously at different angles. The one furthest to Red-X's right impacted Robin, sending him crashing back into the dome wall and stunning him. X went in for a punch, but Robin quickly dodged, and his fist hit the dome wall. He didn't feel the shock, but the wall reacted violently, the pattern now being skewed. He had cracked it with his brass knuckles! A few more punches like that and he could get out of here.

But the moment was lost when Robin's staff collided with his back, sending him sprawling into the dome and again receiving a shock. He started to turn around but Robin quickly pinned him to the dome wall. The pain was unbelievable! He desperately tried to throw an energized X-a-rang behind him, but it impacted Robin's staff and exploded at point blank range, and this damaged his belt. The super xenothium wouldn't work anymore.

"No!" Red-X shouted. He charged Robin but was met with a flashbomb disc right in his face. Now he was laying on the ground, barely able to move. Robin stood over him victoriously.

"It's over, Red-X!" he said.

Raven dropped the dome she had put over the masked fighters since the fight was seemingly over. She rushed to Beast Boy who was just waking up. Red-X reached for the case that the mask had been in, but before he could get it, it was encased in black energy and placed into Raven's hands.

"Don't even think about it!" Raven and Robin both said at the same time.

"Yo Robin, a little help here?" Cyborg called. He and Starfire were still stuck together from the energized sticky X. Once he turned around, Red-X started struggling to get to his feet. He tried to slump away.

"Stop!" he heard Robin say. He turned quickly and threw his last explosive X into the window of a nearby building. The explosion could be heard from where the Titans were, and flames could be seen forming. Red-X jumped on top of a moving truck riding on the highway below as soon asn the heroes turned to the explosion.

The team scrambled to the building immediately to see if anyone was hurt. Saving lives was more important than catching a theif, especially if they already had the mask back. But they discovered too late that the building was uninhabited. They put out the fire, but they had let Red-X escape for nothing.

The Titans headed back to the tower. Roin was taking the case back to the evidence room when he noticed something strange. "Huh?"

Grabbing his e-key, Robin opened the case and made a horrifying discovery. "Oh my god! Noooo!"

The mask was a fake. The real one had been switched out. Red-X must have gotten it open before they confronted him at the city limits.

The team was quickly informed and tried to console Robin, but it didn't work. The leader said that he needed to be alone. He locked himself in his room and began to cry.

 **Location: Red-X's hideout**

Red-X enjoyed what he was watching through his secret camera hidden in Robin's room. In his hands was the mask he had worked so hard to steal. He recorded a segment of it that didn't reveal anything about Robin's mask, and anonymously sent it to the Hive.

Then, he put his feet up, pulled up a bowl of popcorn, and laughed hysterically.

 **The End**

_ **Author's note: Okay, so that ending was pretty brutal, I know. But now I've got the perfect hurt/comfort fic set up for Robin and maybe Beast Boy, where his teammates (especially Starfire) try to cheer him up. I've got a lot of plans for other fics, but I'll get around to that at some point. Anyway, reviews are appreciated. Hope you guys liked it!**


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